Some observers of the N.S.A. suspect that it coöperates with its foreign counterparts, such as Britain's G.C.H.Q., to evade the laws that restrict intelligence agencies from spying on their own people.
It examined whether to allow evidence gathered from phone tapping and other sources to be used in court – as opposed to it being restricted to intelligence gathering purposes.
The State Department has restricted the intelligence-gathering activities of Special Operations Forces assigned to some American Embassies, fearing that service members will bypass diplomatic channels and report directly up a military chain of command, lawmakers and senior officers said.
Reform included congressional legislation that made intelligence committees permanent in both houses and executive orders issued by presidents Ford and Carter restricting certain intelligence operations.
And it is drafting new Europe-wide data protection rules requiring US internet companies operating in the EU to obtain permission to transfer data to the US and to restrict US intelligence access to it.
The senior American diplomat, who served under presidents Reagan and Bush, added: "To sever, or somehow restrict, the intelligence relationship with the UK would simply be contrary to US national security".
The conversation was restricted to two intelligence programs that so far have garnered a lion's share of media coverage: phone metadata collection and the surveillance of foreign Internet users.
The Deep Blue computer's winning match against Gary Kasparov in 1997 was a landmark in showing that we understood computing technology enough to take on the task -- one we thought was restricted to human intelligence.
Not wanting to restrict his intelligence-gathering to his opponents, President "Tricky Dicky" Nixon took the unusual decision to conduct surveillance on himself by recording all his conversations in the Oval Office, thereby unwittingly ending his presidential career over the Watergate scandal.
Mr. Sensenbrenner cited a 1995 memo, written by Ms. Gorelick when she was deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, that restricted information-sharing between intelligence officials and criminal investigators.
The military and the C.I.A. have long been restricted in their domestic intelligence operations, and both are barred from conducting traditional domestic law enforcement work.
